Conradie, InaBockarie, Abioseh Maddie2023-07-122024-11-112023-07-122024-11-112023https://hdl.handle.net/10566/19600Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThis thesis examines the interaction between the political affiliations, collective agency and structural opportunities of market women in the Lumley Market, which is in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown (2019). Informal marketplaces in Sub - Saharan Africa are spaces of opportunities for market women. However, it is difficult for one trader to use her personal agency to translate the opportunities in the marketplace into achievements. There are numerous structural challenges, like poor market infrastructure, norms and traditional practices that make it difficult for her to reach out for these opportunities. So this study refers to the collective opportunities that are available to market women as “structural opportunities” (Conradie, 2013, p.29), because they are embedded in the structures of the marketplace. It is difficult to identify the opportunities that are available to the Lumley market women because opportunities are just potentials (Des Gasper, 2002). Therefore, the study examines the five achievements commonly identified by the Lumley Market Women Association (LMWA) in 2019 to indicate their opportunities. The first objective of this study is to describe these five achievements.enPolitical affiliationCollective agencyMarket womenCapability approach and achievements.University of the Western Cape